Carbon tax and Europe to dominate airline talks

The world's airline bosses meet from Sunday in Beijing, with talks likely to be dominated by a bitterly opposed carbon tax, the European debt crisis and the perennial headache of high oil prices.The International Air Transport Association (IATA) annual conference is likely to see airlines joining global calls for an alternative to the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme, industry analyst Barry Grindrod said.

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The global airline industry will urge countries around the globe, including Canada, this week to adopt a mandatory carbon emissions trading scheme for airlines starting in 2020 at a meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal.

The EU's implementation of new regulations imposing a tax on airlines based on their carbon emissions has resulted in a firestorm of litigation and international teeth-gnashing. The EU's steadfast commitment to assess the tax also has led many to speculate that the system could set off a "trade war" among nations as they impose similar retaliatory fees on EU-based airlines that enter their airspace.

Led by the US and China, 26 nations are now protesting the EU's airline carbon tax, and a outright Carbon Trade War Edges Nearer.
An alliance of countries opposed to a carbon tax on airlines is threatening to tear up trade deals with the European Union and impose new taxes on EU carriers, in a sign the world’s first carbon trade war is edging closer.

CANBERRA — Australia’s government moved on Tuesday to scrap its carbon tax and bring forward an emissions trading scheme a year earlier than planned, a policy shift certain to be a focal point in an election likely to be held within weeks.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he wants the fixed price on carbon emissions to end on June 30, 2014. A floating carbon price, or emissions trading scheme (ETS) that will be linked to the European carbon market, will start the following day.